Career Center

The Digital Interests Lab is looking for a postdoctoral fellow in "Racial Equity" starting September 2022 with opportunity for annual renewal through 2024. Based at New York University (NYU), the Digital Interests Lab is a research collaborative that fosters interdisciplinary scholarship on data governance and public accountability. The fellow will work in close collaboration with Dr. Anne L. Washington, the Principal Investigator (PI) and Director of the Lab in addition to another postdoctoral fellow in Data Justice being hired simultaneously.

The Racial Equity fellow will identify legacies of institutional inequality in emerging data technology, specifically reimagining how to handle digital patterns of enforced racial hierarchies and historic injustice in Black, brown, indigenous, and other marginalized communities. This fellowship will emphasize public scholarship and communicating to policy audiences. Experience with naturalistic fieldwork is a plus. 
 

Requirements include a law degree or a doctoral degree in a relevant field such as history, digital humanities, sociology, communications, ethnography, education, psychology, political science, or library & information science in addition to research interests such as ethnic studies, African-American history, ethics, American studies, public administration, governance, organizational behavior, infrastructure studies, or digital government. 

The fellow will divide time across two broad areas: 

• Participation. Postdocs will actively participate in the intellectual life of the lab by exchanging drafts, sharing research in informal settings, and attending regular Lab meetings. 
• Professional Development. Applicants should envision a research stream that supports the mission of the Lab including contributing to co-authored papers  In collaborative partnership with the PI, each fellow will create a 2-year career plan, which will include public presentations of work.

The fellow will join NYU's Washington Square campus in New York City, however remote or non-resident fellows are welcomed. The positions are situated within the academic department of Applied Statistics, Social Sciences and Humanities which is part of the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. The fellowships are housed within the Center for Practice and Research at the Intersection of Information, Society, and Methodology (PRIISM). 

The ideal candidate is a strong writer who is familiar with a range of methodological approaches; can work in a team or independently; has a track record of cross-disciplinary work; and displays an interest in practical applications of academic scholarship. Proven professional familiarity with racial equity in the tech industry is a plus. Demonstrated teamwork in theater, sports, music, or project-based collaborations preferred. 

Applicants must provide a short statement that covers the following three points:

• Proposal: We are committed to accountability in digital infrastructures. Describe your one-year empirical project and its broader impact or envision one that might address: digitized social hierarchies; patterns of injustice or exclusion; subverted power dynamics; computational, community, governance, or regulatory solutions; infrastructure, standards, or legitimacy; human resilience and historic legacies in digital infrastructure. 
• Accountability: We represent many social, political, and economic groups. Please discuss how your personal experiences and/or scholarship challenge systems that enforce power imbalances. 
• Methods: We are open to different methodological approaches. Please describe your scholarly training or address any of these questions: What is your epistemology? Which theorists or methodologists do you cite? What are your favorite software packages? Which methods class have you taken? 

Please submit your application on Interfolio. The application must include a CV, a writing sample (max 2 documents), contact information (name, title, and email address) for 2-3 references, and the requested statement (max 3 pages or ~900 words). Applications received by the deadline Monday, June 6, 2022 will receive priority. Only Interfolio applications with the requested statement will be considered. 

The annualized salary of $70,000 was generously funded by a gift from the Microsoft Corporation. Fellows are supported with health benefits and a stipend for travel or computing.

You may also directly contact us by emailing [email protected] with "Equity PostDoc2022" in the subject line. 

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